First things first. IRHA is funding KURE, my bad, mea culpa. It would figure that my only glaring factual error would be in the last column of the semester.

Secondly, I don’t care how many radio stations IRHA in fact DOES give funding to, no one in Littleton needs our money that badly.

Have you been watching your CNN lately? Well, I have. On my way between watching “Jaws” on TBS and “Jaws 2” on TNT, I’ve seen the odd interview or two. Though the indignation is still there, it is fading a bit and sympathy is definitely developing for the two kids whose monstrous actions have branded them forever as heinous cretins and murderous fiends.

You can feel it, too, if you haven’t completely lost interest already. If the shock value hasn’t completely worn off of you yet. Our news agencies are getting in there and digging into the deeper news story.

It turns out Columbine had more than its fair share of pricks, and CNN is more than happy to talk to those kids who want to share their stories of high school abuse at the hands of jocks and jock-loving administrators who are willing to overlook harassment and vicious abuse as simple larks of youth.

I must admit, I am a bit more impressed than usual with CNN on this one. I half expect Bernie Shaw or some other commentator to come out and say after one of these interviews, “Oh, who are we kidding here, people, these kids are snots, and the real tragedy is those two missed the jocks who gave them all the crap in the first place.”

I, of course, do not advocate such biting political commentary or the use of violence to solve problems. As my grandfather was fond of saying, “If you get into a firefight with a jackass, a bystander can’t tell the difference.”

I feel that all life is sacred. Even the lives of “the social elite” who feel that they have some kind of God-given right to make the lives of nonconformists hell.

I believe that if a person gets picked on relentlessly in high school, he shouldn’t kill those who make his life a living hell. That is too easy.

He needs to hang in there. He needs to realize that one day, those jocks will finally get their degrees in physical education, and then THEY can spend the rest of their pathetic lives getting made fun of by high school kids. It’s called poetic justice, and believe me, it’s coming for us all.

Now, of course, I don’t want to generalize. That would be wrong. Not all jocks are douche bags looking to give red bellies to fatties and beating on the gay kids because come svelte jock is secretly attracted to their supple limbs and graceful shower manners.

They aren’t all date rapists and steriod-using testosterone humps. Some are quite nice and never deserve to be horribly mutilated by automatic weapons fire. But both of those guys are too busy doing missionary work to give anybody a swirly anyway.

I had a high school reunion a couple of years back, and let me tell you what became of one of the biggest jagoffs to ever come out of the Council Bluffs school system, and THAT is saying a lot.

Curt was a bright and shining football star that all the ladies adored. He spent his days hanging out in the seniors’ lounge and picking on anyone stupid enough to come within his perimeter. He had to have been the stupidest jackass I’ve ever met, and I used to work in Omaha.

Somewhere along the line, Curt got a reputation for being a funny boy, too. So in addition to ragging on kids half his size, he was also considered a raconteur by all the other thick browridges. This only encouraged him.

Curt thought his life was going to be smooth sailing. It was — up to a point. He sailed right through a second rate junior college and got his degree in the phys ed arts and he never even had to give up drinking five nights a week.

By the time the reunion rolled around, he had been recently fired from the middle school he was working at for having an affair with the principle’s wife and questionable art photos he had taken of the girl’s soccer team with a polaroid. Yet he still walked into that reunion like he was God Almighty.

Of course, he lied and told everyone he was successful. That was par for the course. But I knew the truth. I knew which one of us was the loser, and I took great glee in punching holes in his story all night long.

Ironically, I had no intention of going to that reunion, but I have a friend who is a lawyer and he had to stick it to everyone who thought he was a loser in high school. He also had to make me watch. What good is revenge without a witness?

I downed a pint of malt whiskey and used my secret intelligence sources to needle this wanker all night long. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

Now I could have shot him all those years ago, but I didn’t. I waited, and that made for a much sweeter revenge in the end that everyone could enjoy. And now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

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Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs. He is opinion editor of the Daily.